Finally, An NFT that celebrates the decline of COVID

Brett
5 min readApr 11, 2022

Why would an NFT help? Well it depends on the mission, let me explain. NFTs allow the buyer to hold the original digital token which serves as proof of ownership, of which valuations are speculative. What if you could peg the price of an NFT to a world event or situation? We now know that Covid daily new cases will soon wither away and mass immunity will make it a less impactful virus. Why not create a non fungible token that becomes rarer as the virus it’s pegged to, does also. The Covid virus itself might not become rare but the impact it has on us will.

The Covheads NFT project has been created by its founders to represent this very thing, the project highlights a negative correlation with daily new Covid cases, so as daily new cases drop the NFT token value goes up. It will become a highly demanded token with global value and historical significance.

If we own a token that represents surviving Covid and one that encourages a drop in cases — through means of social distancing, handwashing, wearing face masks and dare I say ‘vaccinations’ — the ownership of that token will increase its valuation.

Isn’t this Covid profiteering? There has been plenty of bad press on individuals and companies profiting from the Covid pandemic, this became apparent due to the increase of the virus and from the suffering it caused. Profiteering is usually increasing the price of goods especially during times of an emergency. Our NFT can be seen as a type of digital commodity retaining its value from an improved situation (less covid cases) and actually goes down in value in an emergency situation (more covid cases). To sum up, our project is not profiting from a bad situation, on the contrary, it loses value in an emergency situation.

Will I have to be whitelisted? We have seen whitelists being misused. The work involved by the future buyer to get a whitelist spot is immense, especially by promoting the NFT project. The problem lies in the fact that the project gets a network effect that is primarily false as it is based on the security of the whitelist and not the passion of the project itself. Granted, Whitelists are made to firstly avoid a MINT rush and secondly to reduce gas fees. To avoid congestion, our initial Mint will last over a few weeks, Covheads that haven’t been minted after that period will be deployed onto Opensea; we may limit the number of NFTs to be minted if gas fees get out of control. Our smart contract is gas-fee-optimized using the latest ERC-721A technology so gas fees will be as low as they can go.

How is this NFT purchased? The Covheads NFT will be available for minting in June, they will be minted at 0.08 ETH from the Covheads website. Follow us on twitter @covheads for up-to-date details.

How did you come to a valuation? The Covhead team calculated an ETH value for each new daily case. A reasonable value was calculated based upon:

1.The present value of ETH

2. Number of cases worldwide

3.Affordability in the present NFT space

How is the value calculated?

The data used by our valuation algorithm comes from the COVID-19 Data Repository by the Centre for Systems Science and Engineering, each daily case of Covid is allocated an ETH price for valuation. Please see our valuation tool: https://covheads.com/#valuation

The upper limit of cases is 0.1ETH at 3,033,333 cases, which is the base starting point (Base case). Every new daily case is deducted from 3,033,333 and multiplied by our per daily case value.

Per daily case values:

The ‘per daily case value’ moves in a non-linear fashion. This means that when we drop below 1 million cases of new daily cases the ETH value of each case doubles as 1 million is an important milestone number. Here are the values:

So for example the formula works like this: (Base cases — New daily case) x Per daily case value (in ETH)

If I take an example of a Super Rare Covhead value at daily new cases of 490,000, the ETH value for that Covhead NFT is calculated as follows:

(3,033,333–490,000) x 0.0000030 = 7.6ETH

See our valuation page.

Are you allowed to set the price of each Covhead? A commodity like gold for instance will have several banks and internal/external chair members calculating the price depending on supply and demand.

With Covheads our price calculation is only a suggestion of what it should be, based on our community response, so this is not set in stone. However, the price is there to maintain stability and transparency; we have our own valuation algorithm that calculates how much each Covhead token will be worth on public sale (this is only a proposed price).

Ultimately the market will decide based on supply/demand and on the number of new daily Covid cases.

How is rarity figured out? In order to calculate the rarity of each token we have allocated certain traits as being rare. A chain earing, diamond stud earing or cross (crucifix) earing are deemed as being rare. The gold crown and graduate hat will also be seen as rare. We have compiled a spreadsheet showing the relevant Covhead file number and its rarity. The rarity numbers range from:

Common: 64–85.6

Rare: 85.7–107.2

Superare: 107.3–129

What if new daily cases get really high? We have set the valuation of a Covhead at 0.1ETH if cases rise above 3 million which is still cheaper than the 0.08 ETH price at initial mint.

Mint proceeds? We are witnessing the devastation caused by the Russia-Ukraine war and will be donating 10% of initial minting proceeds to the charity selected by our Community on Twitter, in order to play our part in alleviating the humanitarian crisis that is occurring. More updates will follow on our Discord and Twitter channels.

How about the utility of the Covhead token? The Covhead NFT will be a historical collectible representing the Covid pandemic; owners will automatically gain access to receiving the 3D Covhead (a covheadlist not a whitelist!!). We are rapidly entering the metaverse and the usage of NFTs as a PFP/avatar/asset in this space is becoming more apparent. The next phase for the Covhead franchise will be the creation of a 3D Covhead with a functional utility in the metaverse, this can be purchased at a later date, although minting of this token will be available for present 2D Covhead owners at a discounted price. The 2D Covhead will still be a rare collectible and the first of its kind to represent the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Covhead NFT represents a worldwide event that will remain in history for the rest of our lives. What better way than to own a piece of history through a blockchain-based certificate that represents a digital asset you carry for life?

Holding a Covhead NFT means you will be carrying a token that is historic, transparently priced and a first of its kind, long-term collectible.

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